On Making a Police Report

Your police report is only to complain to the police to investigate possible foul play in BNM’s raid on GMSB, nothing more. Nobody can ever guarantee you success in a civil suit against GMSB even if you didn’t make the police report, so what have you got to lose? But just think, if we can form enough public pressure for an investigation into this matter, the end result makes us with everything to gain.

Everybody, a Malaysian or otherwise, has got the right to lodge a police report under the law. However there have been occasions when one has come across news that the police have actually dissuaded complainants if not prohibited him/her from filing a police report. All sorts of excuses will be given to you, some even sound threatening. Some of these excuses will be that the report is not required, or that there is no point because the report will not be investigated. The usual deterrent is to let you make the merry go round and send you from one station to another until you give up ending frustrated. Worst case scenario is that you may end up being told that your complaint is flatly refused.

Whatever said, the bottom line that all must bear in mind is that you have the right to make a police report. It does not matter whether the police officer likes it or not. It also does not matter whether the officer likes your story in the report or not, every complaint has to be investigated. If you have proper documentation to back up your complaint, you have nothing to fear. Recent amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code (the “CPC”) make this perfectly clear.

I have mentioned the CPC, so let’s run through quickly the relevant law involving the making of police reports:-

1. Section 107 requires the police to put into writing all oral complaints received from a complainant into a written statement and that statement is then verified by the complainant to be accurate and correct. The complaint must then be recorded in a book maintained in the station together with the date and time the complaint was made. If the complaint is reduced to writing (i.e. making a verbal statement into written form) or there is a written statement then it must be signed by the complainant.

It is worthy to note that you can prepare a statement before going to the police station. Because the template or format of the police report is already prepared for you, it is much simpler to copy it into a thumb drive, fill in all relevant information needed and save it so that you may retrieve the completed report when you are being attended to by the police officer in charge of your report. Remember that the officer will ask you to read the report again and once you have done so the officer will make a print out into hard-copy and ask you to sign. It is also a good idea to make a copy of all relevant document, information etc for the police just in case there is a need for it for purposes of the investigation.

2. Section 107 Subsection (4) states that a police officer shall be duty bound to receive any information in relation to any offence committed anywhere in Malaysia.

This is the part of the law that makes it compulsory for a police officer to take in your police report no matter how trivial it is to him.

3. Section 114 provides that no police officer or other person shall prevent or discourage any person from making in the course of a police investigation any statement which he may be disposed to make of his own free will.

Notably, Section 114 applies to police officers just as well to normal citizens. If one reads Section 107 and Section 114 together, the situation makes it quite compulsory for police officers to follow and hence they are in flagrant breach of their duties if they refuse or even discourage citizens from lodging a police report.

4. Section 107A gives you the right to request for a report on the “status of the investigation” of your complaint from the officer in charge of the police station (OCP) where you made your complaint. The OCP is obliged to notify you of the status within 2 weeks of receiving your request. However you should note that there are three conditions to be fulfilled i.e.

Your complaint must involve a seizable offence only (so does not include non-seizable offences);

Time (to submit a request) only starts after 4 weeks of lodging your complaint; and

The information that’s going to be released to you is not going to “adversely affect” the investigation into an offence or its prosecution in court.

Having filled you in on the position of the law with regards to making a police report, it is now important that you read the following notification:-

A. There is no compulsion for you to make any police report if you feel you are not agreeable or not comfortable about it.

B. You do not need to make the report immediately the same day. Schedule it according to your time of convenience. You do not need to take leave from work just because you have to do it on that day.

C. You are aware that you are making the police report out of your own volition and you have only yourself to answer to for what you say in your report.

D. You may choose to make the report either in English or in Bahasa Malaysia.

E. You must be sure that you are able to back up what you say with concrete evidence. If you have nothing to back you up, don’t go make the report.